Richard Fernandez describes it as the principal-agent problem. US citizens are the principal, Obama the agent. He's supposed to represent citizens' interests against third parties, regardless of any adverse results to him - like the loss of an election.

Obama to Russian President Medvedev: "This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility."

"On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space,"

===============Oh, fucking joy!Let the Fundies and conservative yahoos help reelect Obama because the Republican nominee isn't pure enough ideologically, or he hasn't embraced Jesus as his personal savior and stand by after the election for:

1. President Obama to apologize to Russia for the Cold War.2. To announce he will scrap any missile defense rather than offend the Russians and Chicommies and NORKs.3. Announce he is cutting America's strategic arsenal 30% and he hopes Russia follows suit.4. Praise the Russian model of universal health care and their commendable years of ensuring that the richest 1% did not run the Soviet Union...at least before that great empire sadly fell.

"It'll be interesting to see the spin. Note to people: All microphones are live!"

Why would the White House bother with spin?

Obama voters are, on balance, too dumb to presume this a problem.

The balance of voters who see the pathetic idiocy of this didn't vote for Obama in the first place, and won't this time around either.

Swing voters who could go either way?

They won't pay attention until the Sunday before election day, after they've mailed in their absentee ballots - and in the meantime, the news media will comply by burying this under the sad Trayvon Martin death.

Probably also should be considered in context with the video someone - I think in Denmark - put together of the little speech Obama gives every small-nation prime minister that is invited to the Oval Office for a photo-op.

It is the identical, word for word, speech delivered in the same hesitant cadence as if he is searching for just the right words for this particular visitor and the nation he/she represents.Denmark, Norway, Iceland, the Philippines, and I lost track - just "cross out machinegun and write pizza."

It would be entertaining, I think, to also have the CIA tapes recording what the dignitaries had to say to their aides when they got back to their embassies!

Wow, where to start. Our president asks Russia to not make trouble for him until after the election and maybe there will be a little something extra in Putin's Christmas stocking, and you have trouble seeing anything wrong with that.

The only thing worse is that this genius thinks he actually has to tell the Russians this because he thinks they are too stupid to figure it out on their own. The combination of live mic stupidity with arrogance is too much to be believed.

Seems like a lot of folks are assuming that Obama was being straightforward with Medvedev, rather than just politely telling him no. What's Medvedev supposed to say in response to this "I think you're going to lose so give me what I want now"? No. He's just got to sit there & take it.

They'll all run it. Many of them will spin it and downplay the scandal. (See for instance the MSNBC story). ABC news is running the Santorum "gaffe" at the top of the page, and Obama's in the middle of the page.

But the clip is so damning, they have to run it. And discuss it. And ask him about it.

It's like the Romney etch-a-sketch gaffe, except 1000 times worse. It's Obama, not an aide. And it's not just contempt for the voters, but also insider sleaze involving the Russians (who just stole an election themselves).

I don't know if this is a genuine scandal or not, but the clip is utterly damning, that's for sure.

The media cuts out a damning remark and gives it to us out of context.

So, yes, the media will report on Obama's scandal. (An actual scandal). But they will also give this scandal all the context and spin that they can. They will try to save him from his own scandal, while reporting on the scandal.

Because they know we love scandals!

Santorum, on the other hand, gets zero context from the media. They're not going to play the next sentence for us. In fact they are using a remark, out of context, to try to damn Santorum as much as they can.

They are trying to create a scandal around Santorum. While they will report on Obama's scandal, they will also try to spin it so it's not so bad.

one can only imagine the state dept is generating numerous backchannels to eastern europe heads of state after this little faux pas. As noted above if the GOP cannot make this into a campaign issue, they deserve to lose.

any head of state anywhere, after looking at this exchange, will have zero trust in the president of the united states. Mr Obama has singlehandedly destroyed the credibility of the United States on the world stage. Disgraceful

Wouldn't be treason (we're not at war with the Russkies), but certainly impeachable given the stakes and context.

Pray tell, what is "the high crime or misdemeanor".

He told a political truth. If he tried to change the ridiculous missile defense policy now the Republicans would make a federal crime out of it. Better to wait until after the election to develop a rational policy

He told a political truth. If he tried to change the ridiculous missile defense policy now the Republicans would make a federal crime out of it. Better to wait until after the election to develop a rational policy

So, Progressives are pro-lying to the voters about your policies.

Nice.

Only problem with this line of reasoning is that Eastern Europe doesn't want the missile shield. The Czech Republic has already explicitly rejected it and there is serious opposition to it in Poland.

The opposition is that they stuck their necks out to support it and Obama ALREADY shafted them.

Can you give a reason for any country to trust a word we say when Obama just cavalierly discounts everything done before him?

And don't forget, Saint Ronald waited until his second term to pull all the intermediate range nukes and cruise missiles out of Europe. And tried, at Reykjavik to eliminate all nuclear weapons.

The idea of SDI was not to produce an impenetrable shield, it was to make planning a first strike impossible.

A first strike has to take out all of the enemy's nukes because the retaliatory strike will be to population centers. That was the idea in the cold war. Now the reason is that we could intercept completely the kind of limited strike that N. Korea or Iran could mount.

Freder--thanks. The nike zeus program was a very primitive first generation attempt at intercepting incoming missiles. And as you point out, correctly, the appropriate counter response is to simply build more incoming missiles. I would suggest awareness of that fact led to the strategy of mutual assured destruction which was our nuclear policy until the 1980s. Technological advances, particularly new radars and spaced based technology probably stimulated SDI. The issue herein I submit was that interception of incoming missiles was increasingly likely and in turn required the USSR to spend more money than it had to build the necessary response. And it was the economic cost that in part helped to precipitate the fall of the USSR.

The issue herein I submit was that interception of incoming missiles was increasingly likely and in turn required the USSR to spend more money than it had to build the necessary response. And it was the economic cost that in part helped to precipitate the fall of the USSR.

Actually, we were the ones during the '80's spending unsustainable amounts on missiles and missile defense. The idea that the Soviets tried to keep up with us and spent themselves into the dustbin of history is simply untrue. Yes, the Soviets did increase defense spending in the early eighties, but that was because they were fighting an unwinnable war in Afghanistan. By the end of the decade they were actually reducing their defense spending.

Freder--I will respectfully disagree with your point--and I would base that on the documents that emerged from the USSR after the fall of the Soviet Union. We will have to agree to disagree on this point.

Should be an "Obama is stupid" tag. Everyone's always trying to convince themselves that he's so brilliant, what a savant, what a full on red hot orator, what a heroic genius philosopher king who makes people faint by his mere presence. He's not. It's all smoke and mirrors and palace guard narrative manipulation. And this little episode was just stone stupid. He knows he ought not to wander off script, you know he's been told, but he still does it anyway, and around a hot mic. Well done, Barry. More please.

That will be the "Black Helicopter kook" wing of the GOP, whose rise we saw back in the 1990 under Clinton.

Them, plus the obnoxious Personal Honor contingent, who confuse voting for a politician every four years with expressing a lifelong religious commitment. The urge to elect ourselves a Messiah has crossed party lines.